GE Aerospace

At the behest of New York financier J.P. Morgan, Thomas EdisonThomas EdisonThomas Edison (1847–1931) was an American inventor and entrepreneur who received 1,093 U.S. patents in his lifetime. He invented or improved the phonograph, the practical incandescent lamp and its supporting electric power system, motion picture camera and viewing equipment, and the alkaline storage battery, among other things, and established industrial research laboratories at Menlo Park and West Orange, and is regarded as one of the pioneers of the modern industrial research and development model.Open the full entry’s Edison General Electric Company and Elihu Thomson’s Thomson-Houston Electric Company combined in a merger of equals to form GE, completed on April 15, 1892.⁠[1][2]

During World War I, GE engineer Sanford Moss led a secret project to build a turbosupercharger, a device that fills a piston engine’s cylinders with more air than it would normally take in. In 1918 he tested it at 14,000 feet atop Pikes Peak in Colorado, where the engine delivered 352 horsepower, marking GE’s entry into the aviation business.⁠[3]

In 1941, the U.S. Army Air Corps chose GE’s Lynn plant to build a jet engine based on Frank Whittle’s design, and the I-A engine first ran on April 18, 1942.⁠[4]

On October 1, 1942, the first American jet plane, the Bell XP-59A, took off from Lake Muroc in California. GE went on to make 35,000 J47 engines, the most-produced jet engine in history.⁠[5]

General Electric was an original S&P 500S&P 500The S&P 500 is a U.S. large-cap equity index compiled by S&P Dow Jones Indices. It includes 500 leading companies, covers about 80% of available market capitalization and is described by S&P DJI as “widely regarded as the best single gauge of large-cap U.S. equities.”Open the full entry constituent in March 1957.⁠[6]

In 1971, GE entered the civil market with the CF6-6 on the Douglas DC-10 and partnered with France’s Snecma, now Safran Aircraft Engines, on a turbofan; three years later the 50/50 company CFM International was established.⁠[4]

Jack Welch became CEO of GE in 1981. On September 7, 2001, Jeff Immelt took over the job from Welch, at a time when GE was described as “the world’s most valuable company.”⁠[7]

GE announced that it would sell most GE Capital assets, roughly $200 billion in ending net investment, over the next 24 months; its board also authorized up to $50 billion in share buybacks. GE expected more than 90% of its earnings to come from industrial businesses by 2018, up from 58% in 2014.⁠[8]

In November 2015, GE acquired the power and grid business of the French engineering company Alstom.⁠[1]

GE named John Flannery, head of GE Healthcare, to succeed Jeff Immelt as CEO effective August 1; Immelt stayed on as chairman until his retirement on December 31.⁠[9]

S&P Dow Jones IndicesS&P Dow Jones IndicesS&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) is a global index provider that compiles and licenses benchmark indices including the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It was formed in 2012 by combining McGraw-Hill’s S&P index business with the Dow Jones Indexes business held by a joint venture of CME Group and Dow Jones, and it is now the index business division of S&P Global, which holds about 73% of the interest.Open the full entry announced that Walgreens Boots Alliance would replace GE in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. GE was the only original 1896 component still in the index, and its shares had fallen 57% over the preceding two years.⁠[10]

GE’s board unanimously named H. Lawrence Culp, Jr., CEO of Danaher from 2000 to 2014, as chairman and CEO effective immediately, succeeding John Flannery. GE also expected a non-cash impairment of substantially all of GE Power’s roughly $23 billion goodwill, and said 2018 free cash flow and EPS would fall short of guidance.⁠[11]

GE agreed to pay a $200 million penalty to settle SEC disclosure charges without admitting or denying the findings. The SEC found that in 2016 and 2017 GE did not disclose that part of GE Power’s profits came from reduced prior cost estimates, and that from 2015 to 2017 it cut projected long-term care claim costs without disclosing the uncertainty.⁠[12]

GE completed the combination of GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) with AerCap Holdings N.V., receiving about $23 billion in net cash, 111.5 million AerCap shares representing about 46% of the combined company, and $1 billion of AerCap senior notes.⁠[13]

GE announced plans to form three public companies focused on aviation, healthcare and energy, spinning off Healthcare in early 2023 and Renewable Energy and Power in early 2024, after which GE would be an aviation-focused company. Culp said, “Today is a defining moment for GE, and we are ready.”⁠[14]

GE completed the spin-off of GE HealthCare, distributing one GE HealthCare share for every three GE shares and retaining about 19.9% of the new company. GE HealthCare began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker GEHC that day.⁠[15]

At 12:10 a.m. Eastern Time on April 2, 2024, General Electric Company completed the separation of GE Vernova, distributing one GE Vernova share for every four GE shares held by shareholders of record on March 19. General Electric Company has since operated as GE Aerospace.⁠[16]

GE Vernova began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GEV the same day, led by CEO Scott Strazik and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.⁠[17]

Culp called the day “a historic final step in the multi-year transformation of GE.” GE Aerospace had generated about $32 billion in adjusted revenue the previous year, roughly 70% of it from services and the engine aftermarket.⁠[18]

GE Aerospace had about 52,000 employees. Culp said, “With the successful launch of three independent, public companies now complete.”⁠[19]

In a securities class action in the Southern District of New York, with Swedish pension fund Sjunde AP-Fonden as class representative, plaintiffs alleged that GE and former CFO Jeffrey S. Bornstein misrepresented the use of factoring to conceal cash flow problems at GE Power. The court granted final approval of a $362.5 million settlement on April 24, 2025.⁠[20]

GE Aerospace reports two segments, Commercial Engines & Services and Defense & Propulsion Technologies, with an installed base of about 50,000 commercial and 30,000 military engines, and employed about 57,000 people at year-end.⁠[21]

GE Aerospace’s 2025 GAAP revenue was $45.9 billion, up 18%, and free cash flow was $7.7 billion, up 24%; its backlog was roughly $190 billion, and LEAP engine deliveries reached a record, up 28% year over year.⁠[22]